Newsletter • August 2026

Onyx Borysewicz
1 août
4 min de lecture

Sometimes the energy of a concert makes you travel to many places in your mind.

On July 23, inside Sala Rossa, the final notes of the evening were still hanging in the air. Gwenifer Raymond brought the echoes of rural Wales through her intricate guitar compositions. Emna Mâaref carried the sounds of Tunisia through the oud. Harris Newman traced paths through blues, psychedelia, and American Primitive guitar. Three artists. Three places. Three different musical languages meeting in one room.

When the applause faded, another kind of gathering began. A few steps away, we carried our projector to the side of a laundromat. The films were chosen as a continuation of the evening’s music: stories from Lebanon, Tunisia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Jamaica, Morocco, and Turtle Island. Different rhythms. Different realities. Different expressions of queer joy, survival, and the possibility of imagining new worlds together.

As we set up the screen, a woman waited inside the laundromat for her dryer to finish. When the lights went out, our projector turned on. At first, no one came.

For a moment, I wondered if we would pack everything away. Then someone stopped. Another person wandered over from the concert. Then another. The audience arrived slowly, almost as if a silent whisper had been carried out to join us. A young man stayed through every film while his friends tried to convince him to leave. People returning to their cars stopped to watch. Their headlights swept across the screen, casting silhouettes over the images. For a moment, strangers became part of the cinema itself. Then, during Spectacular by LAL, applause erupted again. But this time it was not coming from the audience in front of us. We turned around. People were watching from their balconies above the street, clapping into the night. The city had become part of the screening.

A week later, I find myself walking along the canals of Amsterdam. I keep thinking about that night in Montréal, the way a simple street became a gathering place, the way strangers became an audience, the way a screen created a meeting. Perhaps that is why arriving here feels so meaningful. Rainbow flags stretch across bridges, museums, public buildings, and even the Royal Palace. There is something profoundly moving about standing in a country that does not simply accept queer communities, but publicly celebrates and protects them.

And yet, at the Homomonument, flowers rested quietly against the memorial, reminding me that the work is never finished. I thought about our members and the many artists who cannot be here with us, those separated by borders, denied visas, or unable to safely share their names and stories.

We are here because they cannot all be here. We carry them with us.

This is what 75 SHOTS has always been: artists from the margins creating work that moves beyond any one story into a plural expression of what creative solidarity can look like.

A confluence.

Different currents meeting.

Stories finding one another.

One love,

Karin Hazé

75 SHOTS Founder

WorldPride: Amsterdam

All summer long, we have been preparing for attending WorldPride in Amsterdam. Thanks to your donations and support, we're finally here! This week, our programming begins. From 2–8 August, we'll bring together queer filmmakers, refugees, migrants, artists, and allies through participatory Pocket Cinema workshops, secret outdoor screenings of films from the Global South and its diasporas, and our Human Rights Conference panel, Storyteller Defenders: Making Censored Voices Visible.

We'll start at the beginning of the festival with our Pocket Cinema workshops on August 2, screen films around the city all week long, and present at the conference on August 6. We will conclude with a final screening on August 8, featuring works created during our workshops.

If you or someone you know is in Amsterdam right now, we'd love to see you there! Tickets for our WorldPride programming are free.

Tickets: WorldPride

We are still collecting last-minute donations. Every contribution helps us bring independent queer cinema to audiences across borders and supports the participation of our artists and community members.

Donate

Wild Pride: Montréal

On August 13, we will be presenting a screening of Map Your Love at Cinema Publique, as part of Montréal's Wild Pride. Come gather with us for an intimate indoor event, featuring rarely-seen works from our collection.

Map Your Love is a non-linear anthology created entirely on smartphones through 75 SHOTS’ collaborative Pocket Cinema methodology. Developed by a collective of emerging queer filmmakers from the Global South and its diaspora, the films emerged from a shared creative journey of mentorship, experimentation, and reflection. With a dozen artists in thirteen countries across the Global South, we revealed and connected intimate stories of resilience, joy, struggles, and triumphs. Due to safety concerns of the creators living in countries where homosexuality is criminalized, the films in this anthology are only shown in safe spaces at private in-person events.

Tickets are pay-what-you-can, with a suggested contribution of $15.

Tickets: Wild Pride

Under the Radar continues

In addition to our screenings at WorldPride and Wild Pride, the final Under The Radar event in our summer outdoor programming will be held on August 20 at Infinity Movement. Join us for an evening of films, conversations, and community connections: we've seen you all over Montréal this summer, from parks to alleyways to the streets of Mile End, and we've love to see you one last time. Celebrate the end of the season with us in Verdun and get to know your neighbours and friends, both new and old alike.

Tickets: Under the Radar

We are excited to announce more Under The Radar screenings coming up this fall. As we prepare to transition into the colder months, we will be holding more indoor screenings and participating in new collaborations. Be sure to stay subscribed and tell your friends to sign up to receive updates about our events.

GET INVOLVED

Host an Under the Radar Screening

Do you have a rooftop, backyard, studio, community garden, warehouse, or another unexpected space?

We're looking for new hosts.

You provide the space. We provide the films.

Whether you're celebrating a birthday, bringing neighbours together, or simply want to transform your favourite place into a cinema for one evening, we'd love to hear from you.

Become a host →